Affiliate marketing managers have hundreds of little tasks each day. All of these add up quickly and managers are often left wondering where the time went. Luckily there are some great affiliate management software tools that affiliate managers can use to maximize their work hours. This article will focus on tools affiliate managers can use to save time throughout the day and get those tasks done fast.
https://youtu.be/NhmPZtDK4zMThe affiliate management software tools that I’ll be overviewing fall under three categories:
- Recruitment affiliate management software
- Help affiliate manager hunt down more affiliates.
- Organization affiliate management software
- Keep affiliate managers focused on the important tasks.
- Time-saving affiliate management software
- My personal favorite when it comes to affiliate management software. When affiliate managers get tasks done quicker, that leaves more time for recruitment.
Each tool has different features and functions that could serve several functions, but I’ve organized them under their main functionality. For example, MediaRails is an exceptional recruitment tool, but their main function is the organization of affiliates.
*FTC Disclosure : This is a professional review blog which gets compensated for some of the products reviewed by the companies who produce them. All of the affiliate management software has been tested thoroughly and suggestions are received only by the best ones. I am an independent blogger and the reviews are done based on my own opinions.
Recruitment Affiliate Management Software
1. Similar Sites : SimilarSites.com
Have an awesome affiliate and looking for more of the same? One button click on this Chrome extension and Similar Sites will instantly populate dozens of other sites that are promoting a similar niche. This has incredible value when recruiting new affiliates to your program. This is my choices for best affiliate software for recruitment.
2. VStat : Vstat.com
A site might look good, but how much traffic is it generating? VStat is a Chrome extension that gives you a quick peek into the volume of traffic the website is generating. It also provides a quick breakdown of monthly traffic over the last six months, allowing you to decipher if this affiliate site is worth negotiating with.
It’s free, easy to use, and is one of the most accurate traffic estimators available.
3. Linkedin: Linkedin.com
This is pretty obvious for most, but you would be surprised by how many affiliate managers are not utilizing this tool to network. The free features of this tool can help connect with thousands of people in the industry. It helps you connect a face with a name and improves your conversion rate of friend making by 120% (according to a statistic I just made up).
4. MozBar : Moz.com
Moz is the go-to name when it comes to domain authority (DA). The MozBar gives you a DA score (0-90) that quickly evaluates the relevance of a publisher’s site. Moz has many other functions to help your business thrive, but this one is particularly helpful for recognizing talent in potential partners.
5. Hunter.io : Hunter.io
Hunter lets you find email addresses in seconds. This Chrome extension quickly scrapes a website for email addresses. Even if you can’t find the right contact, you can usually find the structure, and then go on Linkedin to find the right person. They offer 100 free email copies per month.
6. Redirect Path : RedirectPath.com
Enables you to easily track the URL path of affiliates. This will help you figure out the platform the product is on and the affiliate associated with the promotion. If you find an affiliate promoting a competitor's product, you can find the platform they are on and their ID. You can also use this to check for malicious redirects.
7. Social Blade : Socialblade.com
Need to find influencers in your specific niche? Socialblade can help you find the influencers that will promote your brand and then help you connect with them. They have user stats available for major platforms like YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, and Twitter. They also work with you to filter the results and get laser targeted queries delivered to you.
8. Cleverly : Cleverly.co
Traditionally, this service is used to look for sales and leads on Linkedin. However, for $99 a month, Cleverly writes outreach copy (that you approve) and sends thousands of personalized messages to your dream affiliates on LinkedIn. You’ll get responses straight to your inbox and then can take charge of the conversation. No one has time to send messages and connection requests all day on Linkedin, so this affiliate management software is a sneaky tool that helps you expand your network at a much faster rate.
Want to see my tips to get your next 20 high impact affiliates? Click the button below to subscribe and I’ll send you the PDF.
Organization Affiliate Management Software
9. Boomerang for Gmail : Boomerangforgmail.com
10. Buzzstream : Buzzstream.com
Buzzstream is a Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) that helps affiliate managers organize conversations with partners by recording each website. This CRM/recruitment tool is one of the most cost-effective tools on the market for performance marketing teams at just $25 per month. Instead of using an Excel spreadsheet, your team can manage relationships and share visibility on outreach progress. Automatically save your emails and tweets, then set reminders to follow-up. Researching influencers is another key feature used for recruitment; you can create lists for and discover contact info with the click of a button. This is one of those key affiliate management software pieces that I suggest to all clients if they do not have something in place already.
11. MediaRails : MediaRails.com
Mediarails is a CRM and growth platform that helps you find new digital media partners, organize and engage existing partnerships, and track it all automatically. Affiliate managers are able to find sites that are relevant to their target vertical and keywords within that vertical. MediaRails hunts down sites, email addresses, social following and traffic estimates, then it packages it up in a nice, neat report. You are able to filter through the list and qualify only affiliates that you want to reach out to. Email campaigns within the platform will automate email outreach and sync up with your email system. This is a very comprehensive tool with a user friendly interface that speaks to relationship gurus and data nerds alike. Pricing varies, so contact them for more details.
12. Microsoft Outlook : outlook.live.com/owa/
In terms of email organization, Microsoft Outlook is a more complete solution that has many amazing and under-utilized features:
- Similar to Boomerang for Gmail, you can use the Follow Up tool to add a reminder to an email to follow up.
- If you often send the same content in emails, you can create a template in the My Templates tool and be able to add content to a new email with a simple click.
- With a Quick Step folder you can mark selected email messages as read and move them to a folder in one click. Also, if you regularly send emails to a group of people you can save that group as a Quick Step and in one click a new email will open with all of the recipients email addresses.
- The Clean Up Folder feature removes redundant messages in a thread or folder. Redundant messages are previous messages in a thread also quoted in the replies. This is a great, quick and easy way to clean up your folders!
- Any detailed or instructional messages that you create or receive can be sent to OneNote with one click and stored in your Notebook.
13. OneNote : Onenote.com/download
This tool is much more than a simple GoogleDoc. This is for hardcore organizational masters to keep digital, detailed notes and documentation of processes. You can create several Notebooks that each have sections, pages and subpages to keep all of your notes organized and easily accessible. Tags are utilized to mark things as important, questions to be asked as well as add a check box for to-do items. You can use the search functionality to quickly search and find what you are looking for and you can even email a page from OneNote to share it with others.
14. Affluent : Affluent.io/
Affluent is changing the game in affiliate marketing with their data-organizing software. Imagine having all of your reports Affluent aggregates all affiliate data like commissions, clicks and sales and puts it in one dashboard, saving you hours each week of logging in and check stats for each program.
Affluent has developed two platforms, one for account managers and another for publishers. However, this tool is extremely useful for three demographics:
- Agencies (OPM)
- Affiliate Managers
- Affiliates
OPM
Affluent for Agencies and Advertisers aggregates all your programs in to one unified dashboard, automating client reporting, alerting you to opportunities and potential threats, and giving you publisher intelligence insights. You can customize your dashboard to your liking.
One of the coolest parts of Affluent is the “merged publisher” feature that gives you a simple view of all your activity with each publisher. You can see how publishers are doing across all your brands in your portfolio.
Affiliate Managers
Affluent for Agencies also works for affiliate managers that are working with affiliate programs on multiple networks for one brand. For example, if you are used to the Shareasale dashboard, but you have a program in CJ and Shareasale, you can have just one hub for both programs. This is an extreme time saver for affiliate managers that are pulling reports from both platforms on a daily basis.
Affiliates
Affluent for Publishers is the perfect tool for anyone, from the blogger just venturing in to affiliate marketing to your large multi site performance marketing partners. This is an amazing tool to suggest to affiliates in your program (you could even join their affiliate program and get paid for it).
Good affiliates join dozens, if not hundreds of affiliate programs. Every merchant is on a different platform and the affiliates need to login in to dozens of platforms. They need this tool to be more productive! Your program has a unique opportunity to suggest this tool via newsletter, on-boarding sequence, etc. Suggesting this tool to affiliates serves three functions:
- Keeps your program on the top of their mind. Your newsletter is reminding them to promote you. Then they see daily reports of how much money they are making with your company.
- Saves them time, which will allow them to build out new campaigns for your program.
- Shows the affiliate you care about them making more money, helping you build that relationship.
Time Saving affiliate management software
15. Keyboard Shortcuts
Highlight a word, then press Command+C > Command+T > Command+V > Return. This opens up a new tab in Google Chrome and searches for the word. I personally use this shortcut no less than 100 times a day and can’t imagine life without it now. Watch this video and grab some shortcuts that will help you save time.
For PC users, check out this article : https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/some-cool-keyboard-tricks-that-few-people-know-about/
For Mac users, here is a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdMuZses96Q16. Atext : Trankynam.com/atext/
AText allows you to write out entire scripts instantly with a few keystrokes. The email templates you use frequently will instantly pop up to modify. This product is a steal at just $5 for the app on a Macbook.
Another great option (especially if you are on a PC), is Textexpander. It works in the same function as AText, but it has an awesome features that AText doesn't have:
- Keep Your Snippets With You, Everywhere
- One account, multiple devices
- Share all your snippets with others on your team, automatic updates
I love the features they offer with this subscription service starting at just $3.33 a month. Save 20% when you use the link below.
20% off TextExpander17. Loom : Loom.com
This tool allows you to record screen share videos, quickly make them live online and share the link public or privately. This is huge if you want to make tutorials or private responses to your partners, co-workers, bosses, etc. They offer a free version and $10 a month for pro.
18. Lastpass : Lastpass.com/hp
Almost every website you go to today wants you to create an account. Using the same password is a bad practice and will get your information hacked. Lastpass lets you create just one password that will remember them all for you. Autofill your login info, contact forms, credit card info, and whatever else you want to quickly access. This affiliate management software has a free version, but is just $3 monthly for many more useful features.
19. Calendly : Calendly.com
Avoid the back and forth of trying to schedule a call or meeting by sharing your call availability easily with Calendly. Connect your work and personal calendar and then decide when you want to take calls. Calendly then shows only available spots and makes it easy for partners to schedule time on your calendar, which automatically shows up and notifies you. This is another free product, but $8 a month will get you more functions.
20. LinkClump : Linkclump.com
Open up many URLs in separate tabs with just one click. If you run into a prospective gold mine, you want to open up all websites to check out if they are a good fit. Linkclump gives you that power and will save the back and forth of copy/paste links into the URL bar. FREE.
21. gInfinity : ginfinity.com
When you search in Google, the first search engine results page (SERP) presents 10 results at a time. gIninity lets you scroll into the next page without extra clicks and load times. This works great with Linkclump.
22. URL shortener : URLshortenter.com
Minimize that giant url to share links easier. Think Bit.ly, but they don’t strip your url and replace it with Viglink affiliate links. Also, it's free.
23. Skitch : Evernote.com/products/skitch
Screen capture and editing tool that lets you annotate right on the screen shot. Great for pointing out website issues, bad branding, great work, or whatever you are criticizing. If you don't know what META is, go here.
24. Video Speed Controller : Github.com/igrigorik/videospeed
This Chrome extension helps speed videos up or slow them down…if you are into that kind of thing. Cut your view time in half and blaze through training videos at 2X+ speed.
25. Keywords Everywhere : Keywordseverywhere.com
Type a search query into Google and Keywords Everywhere will report back how often that keyphrase is Googled. It also shows tons of other keywords that are similar. Use the results on the page to find affiliates ranking for those keywords (this works great with Linkclump).
26. Flexclip.
Easily create and edit videos for the brand, marketing, social media, family, and any other purpose.
The cloud-based video solutions enable you to create videos on different devices. After crafting your video, easily share it via a link, or post to social media and beyond.
Those are my 25+ time-saving hacks. What do you use? Leave comments below and I will update this article to include other suggestions.
About the Author
Dustin is the owner of Coalition Marketing, an affiliate marketing agency developing innovative techniques in publisher recruitment. Dustin has created an online course that coaches affiliate managers to prioritize time, recruit the right affiliates, and develop deeper partnerships. Outside of work, Dustin loves his amazing wife, playing with his two young kids, enjoying the great outdoors, growing and shaping odd facial hair, and anything baseball related. Learn more about the author Dustin Howes.
